Beijing Treasures: The Great Wall of China

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So, another couple of days in Beijing. Yesterday was good; we went back to Tiananmen Square with our hopes high on seeing the Mao Mausoleum. We joined a queue of thousands of people, only to be told close to the end of it, that we had to leave our bag in a locker. The prospect of having to join the endless queue again was too much (especially since the place closed at 12 am) so we left and entered the National Museum. It is a fantastic building, modern, spacious, amazingly big once inside. We spent a good hour and a half there and had time to admire just one floor! (ANCIENT CHINA). My favourite items: a prehistoric vase with a hermaphrodite figure (fertility), a couple of pig heads (buried with people in a tomb as a sign of wealth), a mould for arrow heads, gigantic prehistoric whale bones, a jade shroud (to cover a dead body) with gold threads, beautiful animal bronze figures, a spear with human figures ‘hanging’ from it (crazy!) and many others! I also learnt that the first seismograph was invented in China in the 1st-2nd century AD.
From the museum we head towards the Temple of Heaven. This group of buildings (an altar of praying for good harvest and a circular mound altar used to worship heaven) is larger than The Forbidden City, which is already immense. In Beijing everything seems made for giants! The area is surrounded by a wall; the northern part is circular and the southern part square, a pattern symbolic of the ancient belief that heaven was round and earth was square. The buildings in this compound are decorated in beautiful colours, but what stands out the most are the blue shades. The marble bases are impressive, as is the walk between both buildings, flanked by century-old cypresses. Next to one of the buildings there is an ‘Echo Wall’, which everyone is busy shouting at.
Today, however, was the BEST day ever. Today we went to the Great Wall of China, one of the wonders of the World. This is the must-see sight in China. No words to describe the beauty of it, the feeling of ecstasy, and the elation of climbing up those steps, as high as our legs would take us, whilst watching the magic autumn landscape from above. Very impressive, the most beautiful part of China up to now and truly worth seeing. We chose to visit the MUTIANYU section of the wall. There are different tours which arrange these visits, and each tour visits a different section. We chose this part as although further away from Beijing (1h30mins) it’s not so crowded and it’s been part renovated, part not (so one can still appreciate the truly OLD part of the wall, as it was). Our guide, Alice (wonderful guide, if you ever need anyone in Beijing: www.alicefuntour.com) picks us up at 9 am and we head toward the Wall, not without first visiting a very interesting cloisonné ceramic fabric (typical from this area, very elaborate and beautiful). Once next to the mountain we take the cable car up. The cable car leaves us next to the 14th tower. We are invited to walk to the 20th tower (highest renovated point in this section). I tried my best and managed to get to the 20th tower! I felt a bit dizzy being so high, and with such steep steps! But it was WORTH IT! Such views, such wonderful colours (green, brown, yellow, red, orange... all the changing autumn leaves!!) and such an unbelievable sight: to think that this endless, massive, wonderfully made wall, is man-made, seems almost impossible. It stretched out into the mountain, kilometres after kilometres, in an unreal, almost magical way. Apparently the Great Wall can be seen from space, M tells me. Alice explains the Wall has more than 8.000 KM and although the first wall was built in 221 BC, that was all destroyed and what we see today is from the MING dynasty (mostly renovated). Back then they managed to built between 1.7 and 2 KM per DAY!!! Imagine the amount of work that went into that! The amount of people, the amount of stones brought from the Northern Mountains. Fantastic!!! Alice tells us they used a kind of sticky rice as glue. Ironic, she says, when people were literally dying of hunger. The builders were buried alive next to the wall, which reminds me of the Egyptian Pyramids, only in that example I thought the aim was to get rid of everyone who knew the entry to the tomb! Not sure what the aim was here...
Alice explains the Wall was built mainly as a defence against the barbarians (Atila) when they attacked the Chinese frontier. Each tower has a basement, for weapons and food (for the soldiers stationed in each tower). The wall is higher to our right (which may explain why there is only surface water drainage channels to our left) so we walk a bit unsteadily. The first part (14th to 19th tower) is more or less all right. The difficult part is climbing up to the 20th tower – OMG! That was hard. M went up, and not only that, he continued walking up to 21st (non-renovated part) where he made a Brazilian friend. Meanwhile I fight my way up to 20th, watching people struggle on the way up. Old people, young people, families, a school, even a baby! They all made it in the end, even if panting and sweating. The view up there is breath-taking and one feels (in words of Mao) like a ‘Lucky Hero’. Walking down is not that easy: legs wobble and with the walls inclination, you seem to be falling towards one side. NOTE FOR TRAVELLERS: wear comfy shoes, take some water and above all, take your time. If you rest from time to time you’ll make it. If you’re afraid of heights, be careful.
Some interesting facts about Beijing: there are 17 million people in this city (34 million with floating population). It is still smaller than Shanghai, but Beijing is nonetheless considered the cultural, economical and political centre of China. Alice herself is from Xian (Terracota Warriors home!) but she came to the capital for work and opportunities. She tells us there are more and more people with cars nowadays and less with bikes. Not good for traffic and pollution! She shows us the Olympic buildings (now used for events, if one has the money to pay for it!) and finish off the day in a Dr Tea House – where we try, amongst others, the really tasty PUER tea. There is PUER tea from 18 years ago, from 7 years ago. Compressed and wonderfully-smelling, the older it is, the better it is. Like Whiskey! Alice reckons a 60-year old PUER tea (150grams) can fetch 1.5 million RMB (£150,000) (woow!!!). We get a box, of the cheaper one!
Two days left and we’re off to Thailand. Thanks for reading us:
B & M xxx

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